ZrzlMVP Wireless Switch Controller

Hardware Type: Controller

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Review:

(Note: This product was received at no cost for review via the Amazon Vine program.)

Maybe it’s just me, but ZrzlMVP’s controller reminded me of Xbox controllers. Granted, it’s not too far a leap – both Nintendo Switch and Xbox use an asymmetrical analog stick layout and their first-party Pro controllers have a somewhat comparable profile, but with ZrzlMVP’s controller the swirly blue look of the casing and the paddle-style macro buttons seemed like something I would find on an Xbox controller specifically.

In any case, let’s have a look and see what this controller has to offer.

The ZrzlMVP Wireless Switch Controller does indeed share much in common with Nintendo’s own Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, with a comparable button layout, analog stick placement, size and overall shape. However, ZrzlMVP’s controller weighs less, has concave analog sticks (not hall effect sticks, so drift may eventually become an issue), and features a connected disc-shaped D-Pad.

This D-Pad is the first of my issues with this controller. The way it is designed, it is extremely difficult to press it in a way that ensures it is directly down, meaning games that require precision with a D-Pad will not take well to this controller.

The face buttons, at least, are a decent midway point between squishy and clicky, and the L and R buttons are nicely clicky themselves. Curiously, the ZL and ZR button have a lot of give, like analog triggers, but they appear to be digital triggers, the worst of both worlds – you won’t get analog control from these triggers when using them on non-Nintendo platforms, nor will you get the precision of digital controls on Nintendo Switch.

The secondary face buttons have moved around some, with the plus and minus buttons closer to the center of the controller, the home button moved top-center, and the screenshot button moved dead-center. While moving all of these around seems unnecessary, this layout isn’t necessarily bad, I suppose. In addition to these buttons, there is also an added Turbo button between the D-Pad and the right analog stick, which works as you’d expect a turbo button to operate, but also doubles as a settings button in combination with other buttons to change the vibration, lighting level, or set the macro buttons.

Speaking of the vibration, this controller uses adjustable vibration instead of HD rumble, has decent gyroscopic motion control, and can wake the Nintendo Switch from sleep mode, meaning the only functionality of Nintendo’s Pro controller that isn’t included here is Amiibo scanning.

Flipping the controller over, you find on center-bottom a button to adjust the controller’s lighting, and then just above it a pair of paddles to act as macro buttons… at least in theory. In practice, I could not get these to work, with the instructions to reassign these buttons resulting in the controller blinking a few times and then nothing happening.

Already we have a faulty D-Pad, poorly-designed analog triggers, and macro buttons that don’t work, and it just gets worse from there. The controller is supposed to work on PC and Android devices, but this seems to be unreliable, with the pairing not working for me half the time, and then refusing to allow the controller to be re-assigned to anything else after pairing it. Oddly, when trying to pair it with my Android device for the first time, it paired with my PC, even though the instructions do not show it connecting wirelessly to PC and I didn’t have my PC’s bluetooth in pairing mode. I was very confused, and then frustrated when I struggled to get the controller to pair with the Android device and not just automatically pair with my PC. After finally getting it to work, I tried to pair it with the PC again, only now this absolutely refused to work. I was baffled at just what the heck was going on here.

I should note that the controller has a port for headphones, but this did not work with any platform I tried it with.

In the end, so much of the ZrzlMVP Wireless Switch Controller just feels outright broken. Half of the features either don’t work, work extremely poorly, or work unreliably. What’s more, the price this controller is selling for is more than multiple other controllers I’ve used that have none of these issues. In the end, I just cannot recommend anyone get this busted, janky controller.

tl;dr – The ZrzlMVP Wireless Switch Controller is a Pro-style controller with numerous flaws, that’s unreliable, and with many of its advertised features not working, or at least not working properly. Do not get this.

Grade: D+

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